Flexible nursing staff planning with adjustable patient demands.

The objective of this paper is to present a mathematical model for flexible staff planning when patient demands are uncertain and adjustable. The demand level before adjustment is considered a distribution on a daily basis. The adjustment is done by increasing or decreasing the average and the standard deviation of the daily demand level, with the assumption that the total patient demands for a week are identical. The adjustment of patient demands can be achieved by cooperating with an inpatient admission system to control the patient mix and the variation of an admitted census. Then, the nursing workforce can accommodate patient needs efficiency and economically with quality assurance in an uncertain demand environment.